HUMAN PROGRESS 



AND 



PARTY FUNCTION 



AN ESSAY 



S. F. SHOREY 




Book 

GotpghtW 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HUMAN PROGRESS 

and 

PARTY FUNCTION 



AN ESSAY 

By 

S. F. SHOREY 



Author of 

"The Greater Men and Women as Factors of 
Human Progress." 

"Human Harmonies and the Art of Making 
Them. " 

"Injustice and National Decay." 



The system in all lands of holding 
the sources of wealth production and 
distribution are such that it makes of 
the wealthy conservative party con- 
stituency, a class of absorptives. 



SEATTLE 

S. F. Shorey 

1916 






Copyrighted by S. F. Shorey 
1916 



AUG 14 1916 

©CI. A 4 380 4 6 



A WORD TO THE READER 

ABOUT one-third of the thought matter 
of this essay has been taken from my 
"Injustice and National Decay ", wherein the 
chapters having to do with political party 
functions, seem to be too much hidden by the 
chapters preceding and following to serve the 
best practical purpose. 

Herein, other chapters have been added, 
the original part enlarged upon and almost 
entirely rewritten in the interest of better ex- 
pression. 

The effort here made is to show the origin of 
the two political parties in the two well known 
mental types of men, to show how, as factors of 
social evolution, they play their parts, to show 
how different, in the nature of their practices, 
are the products which they tend to bring 
to the community, to locate the place of their 
present arrival, to ascertain if, at the present 
time, one of the two parties tends more than 
the other to act in the interest of the ma- 
jority, and, if so, which. 

Successful reading is an art few acquire. 
The reader who, first understands the mean- 

3 



ings of the words used by the writer, 
can read successfully, if he can read with 
undivided attention and with an open mind. 
Successful reading means thoughtful, crit- 
ical reading. A book must be read as a 
whole as well as a thing of parts. The thought 
of the previous chapters or parts must be 
carried in mind into the following chapters 
or parts through to the end — a thing few 
ever acquire as a habit. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 7 

A Dangerous Suppression 12 

Nature Will Have Her Way. 

Political Parties 15 

Their Birth and Evolution — Their Growth — 
Their Tyranny — Their Intelligent Use. 

Party Principles But Little Understood 22 

A Search For Principles — Voting Deter- 
mined by Peeling, Suffering and Prejudice. 

A Consideration of Party Characteristics.... 29 

Tendencies of the Two Types — Dangers of 
Conservatism — Nature's Remedial Provision 
— Party Blindness and the Democratic Move 
of Social Life. 

Why Conservatives Hold a Majority 49 

Respectable Vulgarity — Confidence in Stabil- 
ity — Suffering and Change. 

Foolish Expectations 58 

Return of Prosperity Prevented By Condi- 
tions — Administrative Control. 

The System That Steals Your Wages 67 

Land Absorbs the Value of Improvement 
and Takes on a High Price — This Rise 
Raises Rents and the Market Prices That 
Take Away Your Wages. 

5 



The Ballot Controlled by False Education.. 77 
Men are Educated by the Conservative 
School, Press, Platform and Pulpit to Vote 
Themselves Into Economic Slavery. 

The Corrective Process 80 

He Who Breaks a Natural Law Will be 
Reminded of the Fact by Suffering — So Is It 
With Nations. 

Liberal Party Handicaps 89 

The Length of Time Needed to Cure a 
Disordered Commonwealth — The Enemies of 
Cure Not Generally Understood. 



INTRODUCTION 

IN governments the best protection against 
autocratic tyranny is found in the pop- 
ular form. But the efficiency of a govern- 
ment by and for the people manifests only in 
proportion to the demands of general intelli- 
gence. 

Since the average intelligence of the peo- 
ple is not high in any country, how can they 
demand high class conduct from their lead- 
ers? 

How many, in their voting, are guided by 
a knowledge of sociology, of political economy, 
and of party principles? 

How many know enough of history to build 
a sound philosophy of history; of biology, to 
understand evolution; of psychology, of soci- 
ology, and of ethics, to put these into prac- 
tice? How many realize that in a citizen's 
mental equipment a knowledge of these sci- 
ences is necessary? 

How many understand the party theories 
or principles which have always led to and 
so long as they dominate the majority in 
practice, must lead to injustice, poverty, 

7 



suffering, national decay, and the gradual 
extinction of civilization? 

We have, in our country, two political par- 
ties. How many understand the difference 
in the principles of these two parties, and 
consequently the difference in the results of 
the practices to which these principles lead? 

How many know which party tends to ex- 
tend justice to the many, which to favor the 
few? The majority of men vote, as a rule, 
with the conservative element and its party. 
Which do you favor, and why? 

It takes times and effort to discover that 
the most remote cause of our difficulties is 
ignorance, that ignorance leads to greed, that 
greed sets up a train of effects manifesting in 
injustice, strife, tumult, suffering, crime and 
anarchy; that this means a gradual, individ- 
ual and national decay, ending in national 
death. 

For long hours of labor and an ever in- 
creasing cost of living there is a simple 
remedy, but this remedy can not be applied 
without a larger general intelligence than the 
one of today. It takes time and effort to 
realize that if all men knew what a few men 
know, the cause of all this poverty, conflict 



and suffering could be removed in six months 
of time. 

When the many know enough to recognize 
and co-operate with their friends — the com- 
paratively few who have the wisdom and 
other means to share — instead of sacrificing 
these friends, on the altar of their jealousies, 
envies and ignorance, the undesirable will 
begin rapidly to pass away. 

What right has any man to reap what an- 
other has sown — in knowledge even — with- 
out paying for it? Nature excuses no man 
for being lazy and ignorant, why should we? 
In other words — unless a man still believes 
in miracles and charity instead of in natural 
law and justice — how can he expect any man 
to sell the products of his efforts in any but 
the highest market? 

The suffering of the millions is the pen- 
alty they pay for remaining uninformed — 
most men will take advantage of others till 
others know how to prevent it. 

All thoughtful persons who stand for fair 
play deplore the fact of the monopolistic 
greed that deprives millions of their rights; 
they also deplore the fact of trades and labor 
union tyranny, for the evil effects of both the 



above wrongs fall heavily on innocent parties. 

But did it not all start through lack of in- 
formation, and is it not continued on both 
sides through the same lack? For, justice to 
all serves greed even, better than injustice. 

Only a short time before they die do most 
men come to realize the humbug of their edu- 
cation, only at a time when another bunch of 
graft educated simpletons stand ready and 
eager to take their places. 

Some of the near-at-hand causes of the 
troubles that exist in ourselves can be seen; 
but the more remote causes are not under- 
stood, in particular do all but a few fail to 
understand that only through general ignor- 
ance can a system of economic injustice be 
maintained. 

It takes time, and more effort than most 
men are willing to give, even after they are 
awakened, to learn much. Problems cannot 
be solved by a contempt of books, by idle- 
ness, by hatred of work, or with a pack of 
cards and a glass of beer. 

Nor can problems be solved by monopoly, 
labor unions, anarchy, or socialism, except 
in so far as these are educational. These 
combinations are all modes of warfare, and 

10 



represent but a very arduous and expensive 
way to solve easy problems. 

More men whose aim it is to do and to be 
more than they seem are very greatly needed, 
for there are plenty whose aim it is to do 
less and to seem more than they are. En- 
lightment will increase the number of the 
former. 

That men agree best and act most har- 
moniously in the best informed communities 
is an argument for the application of an ed- 
ucational remedy to the undesirable in exist- 
ing conditions, for as general intelligence in- 
creases, so does law-making improve. 

Being a male citizen of the United States 
gives the legal right to vote — it cannot, how- 
ever, grye either the moral or the intellectual 
right to this privilege; 

For, with no knowledge of the fundamental 
^rincijjfesf^bf democratic freedom for which 
the UnfEeci States is supposed to stand, and, 
as opposed to ; the autocratic and enslaving 
form of government, no man has a moral 
right to the use of the ballot in the United 
States. 

The United States will never stand for 
what it is supposed to stand until the aver- 
age voter knows more. 
11 



A DANGEROUS SUPPRESSION 

LIFE in all of its forms is equipped with a 
law of unfolding change, with a proclivity 
and a power that makes for improvement as 
unerring as that which moves the earth in its 
orbit. To obstruct the move of this change 
or to deflect it from its natural line of ex- 
pression involves great danger to the organ- 
ism or body through which life is endeavor- 
ing to function. 

For herein suppressed energy means im- 
prisoned energy; it means a pent up power — 
a force which ultimately will either escape in 
some form of destruction or will establish 
itself as an abnormal growth. 

This holds true both of individual and of 
social life. Suppression of progress by fixed 
forms results in the perverted use of life's 
energies, and explains their destructive es- 
cape, as in the case of the prodigal youth, or 
as may now be observed both in Mexico and 
in Europe. 

Where old governing institutions of ignor- 
ance, injustice, and tyranny have been suf- 
ficiently strong to dam and hold back the 
energy of normal unfoldment, the pent up 

12 



forces have usually burst forth in some form 
of revolt. This is nature's endeavor to re- 
turn to the normal or progressive move. In 
Spain these restrictions were of sufficient 
strength to produce national paralysis. 

This law of continuous rebirth in Nature 
resents suppression, and though attempted in 
all countries, in even the most civilized, these 
efforts to suppress normal unfoldment, legiti- 
mate freedom to act, are followed by such 
breaking way as is manifested in different 
forms of rebellion and waste — in idleness, 
crime, strikes, anarchy, destruction, and do- 
mestic inharmony — these are the revolts of 
Nature, its protests against fixed forms of 
selfishness, against injustice, monopolies, con- 
ventional restrictions, and dogmas. 

Rebellion against injustice, in some form 
and in all lands is always in operation and is 
the safety valve of national life. 

Evolution is the natural "move" of un- 
folding change; it is the program of life, of 
life feeling its way into improved instru- 
ments of material expression; it is a process 
of continuous rebuilding, a discarding of the 
unfit for the tentatively fit, for that which is 

13 



better suited to meet the requirements of im- 
proved, but temporary or passing action. 

This "move" is not confined to the field 
embraced by the biological sciences but works 
with the same tireless and irresistible de- 
termination to carve our higher forms of 
verbal, social, political, economic, mechanical, 
and religious expression. 

Comparatively few persons have come to 
understand this natural demand of progressive 
change well enough to use it voluntarily, — 
and of governments, not even one. This ex- 
plains the turmoils of life. 

The growth of a tree is accompanied by 
change in the bursting of its bark. This 
phenomenon indicates that beneath the bark 
new cells are being formed. Enclose the 
trunk of the tree in a jacket, it cannot burst, 
and it will die. Since it has been denied free- 
dom of growth, it must die. And so it is 
with the interior unfoldment of a nation or 
the mental unfoldment of national units. 

Failing, as most men unquestionably do, 
to understand the universal law of unfolding 
life, failing to see that a moving poise, that 
an equilibrium of structure, cannot be pre- 
served without meeting the requirements of 

14 



the law of progress, they learn but little; 
hence, they can neither vote nor can they act 
in other ways with a high degree of intelli- 
gence. 

In the following essays effort has been 
made to ascertain which of the two political 
parties, by conforming to this unfolding move, 
comes nearest to meeting the requirements of 
present social needs. 

POLITICAL PARTIES 
Their Birth and Evolution 

THE two political parties originated in the 
physical and mental variation and inherit- 
ance of the individual. As factors of social 
evolution, one grew out of efforts to improve, 
and the other out of efforts to preserve — 
both inherent tendencies. 

The desire of one class to change improv- 
ingly gave rise to the liberal or progressive 
party, and the conservative party grew out 
of the necessity which arose of protecting 
the products of the thrifty element from the 
inroads of the lazy, thieving, destructive ele- 
ment. 

The lower animal evolves by adapting itself 
to the natural changes which take place in its 

15 



environment, and so does man. But man 
goes farther in adapting his environment to 
himself. 

Had man been unable so to change his sur- 
roundings as ever better to meet his own 
requirements, a liberal party could never 
have arisen. Had there been no possibility 
of united action among men to restrain those 
who would live from the labor of others and 
thus destroy all improvement, the conserv- 
ative party could never have arisen. 

The action of both parties has made it 
possible for man to progress beyond the rov- 
ing, fighting tribe, and the principles of both 
are indispensable elements in the unfoldment 
of civilization. 

Having the ability, and by being driven to 
use it, to better himself and his surroundings, 
being compelled, also, by uniting with others 
to protect his progressive gain and production 
from destruction, intelligence from ignorance, 
work from idleness, thrift from laziness, has 
moved man forward into social evolution. 

Why flatter? 

Present gain of civilization, though the 
product of countless ages of tribal followed 
by national warfare, of conflict among indi- 



viduals, with the gradual coming of better 
organization and more comfortable social 
life, is but a good start. 

Many generations with all of their experi- 
ences and their gradually improving means 
and methods of education, are yet required 
to eradicate from the physical and mental man 
the savage proclivities brought along down 
by inheritance from the early ages. 

Though our tribal heritage is diminishing, 
there is still too much left for comfort; too 
many there are who know about as little, who 
are about as dishonest, as lazy, as jealously in- 
clined, as rapacious as their tribal ancestors, 
and they will lie for about as small a matter 
as the most primitive man. Nor are they yet 
better able to realize how great the evil 
consequences of all this must be than were 
the prehistoric savages. 

The child comes into the world equipped 
with a heritage of pre-social desires, ancestral 
tendencies to do that which was useful dur- 
ing ages of the past. 

To the extent that his home life, his school 
life, and his early experiences of life, dis- 
place this heritage with that which better 
enables him to be honestly self supporting, 

17 



to live in progressive, harmonious, and help- 
ful contact with others of his kind in his day 
and age, is his education a success. 

To the extent that he is not given the above 
fitness and fails to obtain it for himself will 
he, in some form, be an element of disturb- 
ance in his community, rather than a help. 

The large percentage which the above-men- 
tioned unprepared and restless element con- 
stitutes of the personnel of every nation of 
the globe is what furnishes those who thirst 
to dominate others with a plausible excuse 
for doing so through a strong, conservative, 
central government. But while advancing 
their argument they always fail to call at- 
tention to the very large percentage of in- 
justice and tyranny which such a form of 
government always exercises over the indi- 
vidual because such a form lies beyond pop- 
ular control. 

No well-read, thinking, and observant per- 
son, however, can fail to see that human life 
is yet, even when compared with a not dis- 
tant ideal, primitive in character; and the 
need of a nation for a conservative form of 
government is in proportion to this primitive- 



18 



The government best fitted to serve the 
needs of a people having hut a low grade of 
intelligence is an absolute monarchy. In the 
proportion of their rise in the scale of in- 
telligence will they demand forms admitting 
an ever greater amount of individual free- 
dom, passing on up through the limited mon- 
archy to the republic or conservative demo- 
cracy, and onward to the liberal and pro- 
gressive democracy. 

During the early stages of evolution gov- 
ernments became strong through efforts made 
to keep down tribal and individual rebellion, 
until the freedom of the individual came to 
be considered of no importance. 

This strong-arm period seems to be neces- 
sary as a part of social evolution, and con- 
sequently legitimate while serving its turn. 

But few either among individuals or or- 
ganizations are willing to stop at the end of 
their legitimate term of service; they love 
to rule, and the power to do this, when once 
obtained, is held tenaciously and used tyran- 
nically until met and made to correct itself 
by a rival power. 

Hence, the establishment everywhere in 
Nature of a correcting duality, of competing 

19 



forces, of a rivalry, and specifically this is found 
in the conflict of the two political parties 
now under consideration. 

For ages, evidently, in order to keep down 
rebellion, autocratic rule, though used with 
tyranny, was necessary, for the crude, un- 
taught individual could not, in past ages, 
nor can he now, be trusted with much free- 
dom. 

But with the growth of individual intelli- 
gence, autocratic tyranny, even ages back, be- 
gan to be apparent and irksome. 

Men gradually awakened, the numbers who 
could see that this organized suppression of 
individual freedom to act stood in the way 
of social progress, that it was a despoiler as 
well as a friend, an enemy to be resisted, 
fought back, and overcome, has been slowly 
increasing. This increase is being continu 
ously accelerated through the cumulative 
power of progress. 

Thus the abuses of autocratic rule grad- 
ually raised up against itself an enemy — a 
rival, a competitor that all dow^i through 
the ages has been gaining in strength to 
curtail the aggression and injustice of the 
autocrat. 



In the need of an organization to fight back 
conservative aggression, of a party to repeal 
the laws made by conservative despoilers, 
and to guard the free and honest expression 
of individual opinion, is found the second 
birth of the liberal party, or the party re- 
vival of the liberating idea. 

Parties and men, however, are merely on 
the way; they have not yet arrived. For, 
since in every nation of the globe there yet 
exists a large percentage of this ignorant and 
destructive element, it furnishes a pretty 
valid excuse for still preserving forms of 
government having considerable conservatism 
— a measure of autocracy of centralized gov- 
erning power that will become less necessary 
in the proportion that men become enlight- 
ened. 

Although many of the laws made to reg- 
ulate human conduct lack much wisdom and 
honesty, the considerable safety and sta- 
bility of life and growth which these laws 
give, even in their imperfection, is far better 
than would be in even the most civilized 
lands the state of anarchy which would fol- 
low their entire repeal. 

For, practically, both men and nations have 
21 



yet to learn that progress moves onward mid 
way between the two extremes of construction 
and destruction. Hence, by conserving dead 
forms, conservatives defeat the stable move 
at which they aim, while the progressive 
move is sometimes retarded by hasty and 
unwise change. 

PARTY PRINCIPLES BUT LITTLE UNDERSTOOD. 

IT is a matter of common knowledge that 
in all nations called ''civilized" there are 
two political parties. And, by whatever name 
they may, in different countries, be popularly 
known, their difference in tendency is the 
same everywhere. 

They gradually form and come into action 
through the leaders of two well known types 
of mind. These two parties are best known, 
perhaps, by the names "Conservative" and 
"Progressive" — those who hold to the ex- 
isting condition of affairs by which they are 
favored, and those who desire change be- 
cause they are suffering from existing condi- 
tions. 

Nature presents us with a great variety 
of life and form, but in her wisdom she has 



drawn no distinct lines between her groups, 
leaving this for human practice. 

Since political parties are two, and rival 
groups of this variety we find the same blend- 
ing between them; the great majority of 
party units are equipped with no definite 
knowledge of party principles and the dif- 
ferences which divide them. 

In practical politics, therefore, men are 
not divided and formed into parties by a 
knowledge of party principles, but by leaders, 
and by prejudice; consequently, in their 
voting, they are led as a rule by their feel- 
ings instead of guided by their intelligence. 

It is, however, in the interest of social pro- 
gress, justice, and human happiness, of the 
utmost importance that the difference in the 
impelling power of the two political parties be 
clearly understood by the majority of men. 
For it is very essential that they be able to look 
ahead to results with considerable accuracy, 
to see in advance what product a given party 
is quite certain to bring to its community in 
legislation as a result of principles or motive- 
impelled action. 

The community value of the two political 
parties must be discovered by employing the 

23 



same method in their examination as the one 
adopted by men in reading the meaning of 
any other facts of life. 

For life may be viewed as a variegated 
whole, moving into mutually blending groups, 
undivided by visible lines. 

Although no distinct lines can be found 
dividing genera, species, and families, or na- 
ture's differentiated groups, the general or 
distinctive marks can be found. And it is 
through these markings that investigators 
are able to locate groups or kinds and to de- 
termine the laws of their action. 

To understand the relative value to any 
given community of its two political parties, 
the motives of both parties must be under- 
stood. What within each group is the par- 
ticular thing which determines its legisla- 
tive tendency must be seen in a practical way 
and by a working majority before much can 
be accomplished in the way of reform. 

Civilization is now passing through one 
of nature's evolutionary sicknesses, or strug- 
gles, to throw off dead forms, a violence of 
process that would be wholly unnecessary 
had the majority of men learned the import- 
ance of discarding these dead forms sooner* 

24 



That is, had they learned the re-con- 
structive and moral requirements involved 
in legislation — in other words, had they been 
able to act on an understanding of political 
party principles. 

This, leaders of men fail to see and do, 
for the reason that, as a body, they are not 
wise enough to see, nor are they or their 
constituents yet honest enough to deserve to 
see. 

Consequently social evolution always has 
been and still is a very uncomfortable pro- 
cess that comes through the periodic break- 
ing up of old forms of selfishness all at one 
time in the interest of growth and safety. 

This lack of sufficient intelligence to meet 
the requirements of progressive and moral 
change involved in party principles explains 
political quackery and is responsible for all 
the extinct civilizations of the ages. And po- 
litical quackery is certain to thrive and civi- 
lizations to perish until such time as a ma- 
jority have learned of the difference in the 
actuating principles of the two parties, the 
difference in their legislation produced by a 
difference of motive. 

The party attachments of a voting ma- 

25 



jority are not determined by a knowledge 
of party principles. Party ideals have but 
little to do with the way men vote. This 
is determined (as are most of their other acts) 
by their feelings — feelings determined by the 
party preferences of their families, by the 
way their fathers voted, or it may be due 
to the way some clever campaign sophist, with 
his fabrication of half truths and false 
premises makes a certain uninformed element 
believe, and in particular to the way his emo- 
tional delivery makes them feel that they 
should vote. 

But so it is in all departments of life; the 
conduct of life is not determined by wisdom or 
by knowledge of cause and effect. The world 
is filled with great libraries, but since all 
of the body of knowledge with which we are 
so well supplied is not in the minds of men, 
this knowledge is of comparatively little use. 
As a rule, the many reject theories and learn 
better ways of life — they form and adopt the 
use of improved ideals by being driven to do 
so. Nearly all men learn to do the right 
thing only by suffering the consequences of 
doing the wrong thing many times. 

Were voters, by having a knowledge in 



common of the best information available, uni- 
ted in action, instead of being, as they are, di- 
vided by a thousand and one conflicting opin- 
ions few of which have much scientific value, 
continuous and, rafcid social improvement 
would be a simple matter. 

The two types of mind mentioned, form 
men into conflicting or opposed groups, clubs, 
societies, churches, and political parties, 
and they are the two great competitive fac- 
tors of social evolution, — the later products of 
the same cause that has worked through 
countless ages to carve out organic forms. 

Struggle among individuals has an awak- 
ening effect; slowly it teaches men wisdom 
and honesty. Party conflict is a large factor in 
bringing knowledge and honesty into com- 
munity action. 

Were all men wise enough to be honest 
and to do their best voluntarily, two parties 
would be unnecessary. A united scientifically 
conducted effort to put into practice a pro- 
gressive conservatism would then rapidly ap- 
proach an ideal social condition. For a long 
time yet, however, party rivalry will be among 
the most important factors of progress, for 

27 



the world has not learned the art of educa- 
tion — nor is it yet honest enough to do so. 

Again, since it is due to a difference in 
their principles that their practices tend to 
bring to the community results so very differ- 
ent in kind, a knowledge of the principles 
of both parties is of the utmost importance 
to every voter. 

First, then, what results do conservative 
pratcises tend to bring — toward what goal do 
the ideals of that party in which men place 
most confidence lead? "What is the basic prin- 
ciple, the main-spring of conservative party ac- 
tion ? Why, by whatever name it may be known, 
is one of the two parties considered conserv- 
ative? What does it conserve? In so far as 
it encourages thrift by protecting the free- 
dom of honest production it is plainly true 
to its trust. Neither men nor nations can 
progress without retaining their improve- 
ments. 

Since, also, all changes are considerably ex- 
perimental, in order to avoid as many mis- 
takes as possible, these changes, before being 
made, should be carefully considered. All 
this is a legitimate amount of conservatism 
and is the aim of both parties. 

28 



But there are two competing political 
groups, two parties, and, while they have 
much in common, there is an undeniable dif- 
ference in their motives and, consequently, a 
difference in the fruits of their action. 

But, whence, in so far as we can trace 
it back over its evolutionary pathway comes 
this difference in the tendency of the two 
parties, and in the ends of which they are in 
pursuit ? 

A CONSIDERATION OF PARTY CHARAC- 
TERISTICS. 

NOW as to the more specific evolution of 
political parties. The dominating procliv- 
ity of careful men is to posses, conserve, accu- 
mulate, hoard, and to become thrifty, success- 
ful, and comfortable. The conserving individual 
naturally adopts the conservative side in 
politics — it favors his motives. Once comfort- 
able, he dislikes the disturbance of change,, 
and to him conservative party rule means 
stability and happiness. 

Conservative men and women, therefore, 
as well as conservative parties tend to resist 
change till they become the mastered vic- 

29 



tims of their habits — and much more so than 
the opposite type. 

There are in the progressive party as lead- 
ers, some of the wisest among men, but there 
is, also, a large element of the changeable, 
thriftless, dissatisfied, uncomfortable, and 
prodigal sort. And they join the liberals 
because they desire to be benefited by change ; 
they protest against the existing order and 
condition of things for the reason that they 
are the victims of its unfairness. 

Many of this latter type may be of the 
less evolved but the fact of their being here 
on this earth must entitle them to an op- 
portunity to express themselves improvingly 
and to enjoy life as best they may. This 
they find they are prevented from doing 
without seeing how. Through the maze of 
legislative jugglery they fail to see how, by 
monopolies they have been deprived of this 
right and made to suffer unnecessarily. They 
are not informed. 

The move of life is constructive, but it is 
also destructive; that is, progress is a process 
of bettering change, of building, of tearing 
down and building better. But during the 
time of involuntary change, progress is made 

30 



through conflict, men change and improve only 
because they are enticed by their desires 
and driven by their needs to do so. 

Practically, the thriftless man knows noth- 
ing of either half of this dual process. The 
thrifty man has learned the constructing 
and conserving half. But there are extremely 
few of the thrifty who have learned that life 
demands a rebuilding and improving change 
— their acts are more instinctively than in- 
telligently performed. 

Thrift, therefore, has concealed within it a 
dangerous tendency, a tendency to form un- 
breakable habits of miserliness, or to develop 
into a greedy ambition for gain of wealth 
and power. Nor does the danger end here, 
while thrift is conducive to increase of in- 
telligence, it brings with it a temptation that 
prevents the exercise of that higher honesty 
which increase of intelligence implies, conse- 
quently it needs watching. 

Because the way of life's unfolding move 
is not generally understood, few have learned 
to use the power of success with the fairness 
and modesty of wisdom; too often does suc- 
cess lead men into forgetfulness of others, 

31 



into selfishness, arrogance, vulgar display and 
oppression. 

For in all the walks of life, experiences 
of the most pleasing kind are found in the 
channels of our less human or animal procliv- 
ities, and they call for repetition. 

Consequently, the means of indulgence once 
gained, these proclivities call for the pleasures 
of self indulgence, involving broken laws fol- 
lowed by sickness. 

The means of selfish indulgence, also, often 
leads men into aggressions, usurpations, acts 
of injustice, acts that raise up against them a 
host of enemies. 

As a rule, these pleasant ways of habit 
become deep calcined channels in which lit- 
tle resistance is found, mental valleys in 
which men and women once caught, the will 
to climb out becomes weaker through lack 
of resistance; consequently, they are there 
to stay unless driven out by some form of 
suffering. 

Few have sufficient knowledge and strength 
of will to break the clutch of a pleasing habit 
even after it has reached the destructive 
stage — thus the importance of disease and 
rivalry becomes apparent. 

32 



Since parties are made up of individuals, 
it is with parties very much the same — they 
are held to act within their ruts of success 
by their feelings, assisted by a species of mu- 
tual hypnotism. 

As with the individual, party success brings 
self-satisfaction followed by conceit, selfish- 
ness, and an increasing desire for power. 

The satisfaction of this desire to control 
not only national affairs but the private life 
of individuals is sought and secured by the 
leading members of the conservative party 
through laws made to monopolize wealth 
producing opporiunities. 

Stand-pat political institutions, rigid eco- 
nomic and social structures, unchangeable 
forms which tend more and more to handi- 
cap the production and distribution of wealth, 
to resist improvement and to gradually 
strangle national life, are due to the monop- 
oly of natural opportunities by conservative 
party favorites in all lands and in all ages. 

Than this fact of the evils of monopoly, and 
largely of land and other franchise monopoly, 
there is nothing that needs more to be under- 
stood. And few things are less understood 
by the voting community. 

33 



However, while men are learning the fact 
of this growing rigidity of ecomonic and of 
social structure — the way of its coming, the 
tremendous evils hereby entailed, and the 
simple way of its prevention by the removal 
of its cause through the intelligene use of 
the ballot, Nature has provided a national 
life preserver that works automatically in the 
form of this dispossessed, non-attached, 
thriftless, complaining, radical iconoclastic 
element, set in motion by some one or more 
wise men of their day (not by agitators) who 
understand the importance to all men of their 
educational liberation. 

Were it not for this provision bridging 
the time of passing ignorance, progress would 
cease and civilizations would move rapidly 
downward to extinction. 

The way of life's visible unfoldment is 
through an improving change of ils forms, a 
change that is at first an involuntary one. 

In Nature's scheme of breaking up all hu- 
man structures, followed by the need of 
building new and better ones, is concealed 
the secret of progress; herein, also, must be 
found the correct line of voluntary action 
and of educational guidance. 

34 



Old habits and old machinery pass out of 
date and must be changed or superceded by 
the new in both cases because, while these 
are being used, things are learned which de- 
mand either their reconstruction or dismissal. 
New habits must be learned also, if new tools 
are to be adopted and this habit breaking is 
the law of change to which the laws of mind, 
like all other laws of life must consent to 
conform or be driven to do so. 

To the extent that law-making and law-re- 
vision conform to the progress of knowledge 
and honest intent, do they have natural sanc- 
tion and high possibilities of use. And, when 
applied with wisdom and honesty of interpre- 
tation, law as an arbiter of justice and in 
protecting the freedom of men to act in con- 
structive, moral and harmonious ways, serves 
a high purpose. 

Material acquisition is legitimate, to the 
extent that it leaves all men opportunity 
and prejudice free; for it embraces a very 
large part of human expression — all, in fact, 
that some men are able to express in this 
life. 

But material acquisition should leave men 
free; the moment it has given rise to a de- 

35 



sire to appropriate what naturally belongs 
to others, and more than is needed for use, 
a high function has dropped to a sordid aim, 
to greed, and has become a factor of social 
disturbance that, if allowed to have its way, 
will bring destruction. 

Change, in the form of an ever improving 
construction, is the way selected by Nature 
to move life into ever higher degrees of ex- 
pression. 

So, if men are to progress rapidly, they 
must conform hereto; that is, they must re- 
embody life's expression, they must continu- 
ously break up old habits, laws, ways, idols, 
and move into the new as fast as they learn, — 
and they must volunteer to learn and in 
other ways to act without being driven to 
do so. 

As a rule, exclusive pursuits shut out a 
wise philosophy of life; the tendency in all 
human activities is to gravitate into narrow 
grooves of action — nearly all men and women 
become specialists and stay specialists through- 
out life — the habit-slaves which they could 
avoid becoming by taking steps to know a 
little more. 

It is through their lack of wisdom that this 

36 



progress-killing habit-slavery is fastened by 
leaders of men upon communities, by allow- 
ing no improving change to take place in the 
economic, political, religious, and other forms 
through which the community acts. 

Than in their efforts to achieve their po- 
litical ambitions, there are few, if any, other 
fields of effort in which men act with less 
wisdom and honesty; and for the reason, evi- 
dently, that not one aspirant in ten has much 
knowledge of the science of wealth produc- 
tion and distribution, the majority have none. 

How is it possible for men of such mental 
equipment and calibre to see the consequences 
of their political acts? How can politicians 
view their grafts as anything but legitimate? 
The baseness of the ways of their getting is 
concealed from such men by the complexity 
and intangibility of its coming; to them, what 
they obtain, seems something for nothing, 
money "just picked up" and to which no one 
had any particular claim. 

How can they view the billion dollar mo- 
nopolies they betray their trust to grant to 
favorites — and for but a pittance of return to 
themselves as anything but legitimate? 

The fact of the matter is they are too little 

37 



informed to see the infamy of their acts, the 
poverty, suffering and disturbance hereby 
entailed. To such men, the public domain 
and resources have always appeared to be 
endless and inexhaustible. 

What does it matter to such, who goes 
hungry, if they can show off? 

To the mind fittingly equipped for the trust 
which these men betray, all this infamy is per- 
fectly plain — made so by a knowledge of 
the science of wealth production and distri- 
bution and the evolution of morality. 

One half the blame for this corrupt condi- 
tion of affairs, of course, rests with voters. 

It is largely due to a lack of intelligent 
balloting that men without any sort of fit- 
ness find their way to places of great political 
trust. 

The public career of this type is sufficiently 
common to be familiar to all reading and 
thinking men. 

A public functionary with no knowledge of 
the science of wealth production and dis- 
tribution has, as a rule, but little sense of 
justice. 

He sees, therefore, little or no harm in be- 
traying, for a small consideration, hi^ trust in 

38 



the interest of a few favorites. Since he 
does not know of what it consists, he cannot 
see that his service calls for high moral con- 
duct. 

It is impossible for a man who does not 
know what constitutes honorable conduct to 
be a statesman. 

To the mere politician, public service means 
private gain; and he sees no good reason why 
any instrumentality at hand may not be 
legitimately used to secure this end. He 
lacks fitness, both intellectual and moral. 

But since the majority of law -makers are 
of this unfitted type, law-making is confined 
largely to forming monopolies in the interest 
of administration favorites. 

This fact holds more particularly true of a 
conservative party because in the constituency 
of this party there are more men having a 
power of wealth to demand this service, — the 
percentage of corruption is here greater. Nor 
does the matter of power gaining end here. 

In all walks of human activity there is a 
certain desire for change. No person, no 
party, no group of men can be found quite 
satisfied at the end of any achievement. 
Most men, both honest and dishonest, are in 

39 



pursuit of some object of ambition. The 
honest ones work along moral lines, the dis- 
honest members work toward their gratifica- 
tions with whatever they find to serve their 
purpose best, regardless of right or wrong. 

The chief ambition of this latter type is to 
triumph, is to obtain power over others, to 
dominate and to subdue. This is their chief 
motive in gaining wealth, for they thrive on 
applause and love to boss — even to bully and 
enslave. 

Men thus dull of moral sense, on becoming 
sated with wealth plunder, seek new con- 
quests. When the accumulation of wealth 
no longer gives complete satisfaction the 
thing that may be looked for from such men 
as political leaders is plain to those who 
know something of the human mind and have 
observed this particular type. 

The next ambition in the natural order of 
wealth-sated men is to supervise the daily 
lives of great bodies of men and women, to 
control personal conduct through more di- 
rect and specific forms of legislation. They 
like to boss and are led to act by reasoning 
that seventy-five per cent of those by whom 

40 



they are surrounded are sufficiently inferior to 
themselves to need a guardian. 

They fail to see that the poverty, ignorance 
and crime by which they are surrounded are 
largely due to the laws they have made to 
monopolize wealth and the means of its pro- 
duction. 

Thus, men of wealth and men in places of 
power become dangerous members of the 
community through their exercise of power 
with lack of understanding. What they fail 
to see is that social evolution is not moving 
in the direction of their desires, that their 
desires are perverted ones and due to the ap- 
propriation and use of wealth and leisure to 
which they have no moral right — wealth 
legally stolen. 

The desire to become a dictator is a reverted 
type of feeling — a return of the mind to pre- 
historic ages, a step backward toward the 
militant type of society — it is tribal. 

Even though to the superficial observer it 
may seem that the world is moving in the 
above mentioned direction; that is, toward 
monarchy, autocracy, socialism, and other 
forms of arbitrary rule, along the open road 



to tyranny over the individual, to slavery, 
warfare, and destruction — it is not doing so. 

The move is toward social equality and 
individuality, toward democracy, toward a 
better distributed use of function and power, 
of justice and freedom. And, in order to 
achieve this end, old forms of tyranny must be 
destroyed — this is the meaning of what we are 
witnessing today. The speed of this move, 
beneath the surface, is being continuously ac- 
celerated, and he who sets himself in its path- 
way will be ultimately crushed beneath the 
move. For confirmatory evidence take a 
mental stroll along the historic pathway of 
the ages. 

It is due to the blindness of ambitious men 
of wealth and power that the menace to social 
progress coming from the side of restriction 
is today in most countries much greater than 
that which comes from the side of anarchy — 
in fact, it is long continued and ever tighten- 
ing restriction that finally brings anarchy. 

To the precise extent that men succeed by 
monopoly in freeing themselves from com- 
petitive correction do they accumulate power, 
secure control of human affairs, over-estimate 

42 



themselves, and become tyrants difficult to 
reach. 

Monopoly of resources is what we find has 
been one of the chief aims of all conservative 
parties throughout history, what we find as 
the chief aim of its legislation in all lands and 
in all ages. 

A grasping conservative party has produced 
in our own land during the past fifty years a 
monopolistic, subsidizing and bonding system 
that has paralyzed production and distribu- 
tion — a system of ignorance and dishonesty, 
fixed upon the prejudiced, simple, uninformed 
voters, who trusted it for a long time after our 
civil war in the belief that its leaders were 
wise and would enact laws with a fair amount 
of honesty. 

Leaders of a conservative party are stimu- 
lated by its principles to produce and to pre- 
serve something of general value. But they 
are also furnished, hereby, with a pretext for 
resisting needed changes, and they are given 
time, opportunity and temptation to create and 
fortify special privileges. 

In evidence hereof there is always left in 
the wake of a long conservative rule, idleness, 
strikes, poverty, crime, and many other forms 

43 



of discontent and suffering all indicative of 
unjust law making. But since all this mani- 
festation takes place throughout the progres 
sive administrations by which these long term 
conservative administrations are followed, few 
persons are ever able to see the cause. All 
this misery, therefore, is supposed to be due to 
liberal administration. 

It is a fact that through conservative manip- 
ulations, our government (though not to quite 
the extent of older nations) has b.ecome very 
much like an abused and out-of-date machine. 

Today, parties actuated by conservative 
principles do much more harm than do those 
who are guided by principles of the progres- 
sive kind. 

For, being more fully trusted, not so closely 
watched, they betray this trust by helping 
themselves to that with which they are en- 
trusted. They are protected in their mischief 
by the inertness, the lack of information, and 
the erroneous beliefs of men — in a word, by 
the mass ignorance of conservatively imposed 
education. 

The financial support of a conservative 
party comes from the well-to-do, from the 
minority constituency who are comfortable in 

44 



the enjoyment of their possessions, and who, 
as a matter of course, are conservative. Since 
most of what they are enjoying is the income 
of special priviliges, of respectable, time- 
honored usurpation, they resent changes that 
threaten to take away any portion of their un- 
justly acquired holdings, changes that have 
in view the restoration to those to whom these 
holdings rightly belong. 

As we proceed with this essay it will become 
ever plainer how and why it is that the con- 
servative element and its leaders are able to 
make themselves believe that their conduct in 
this betrayal of trust is justifiable. 

They are led by favoring circumstances into 
the belief that they are the superior ones, con- 
sequently to infer that thy are hereby the 
naturally appointed protectors of the many. 
Having, to start with, some ability, much ag- 
gressive selfishness, energy of conquest, and in 
some cases an over-supply of egotism, these 
proclivities become intensified; and often into 
colossal proportions through the wealth of 
others, much of which these men have be- 
trayed their trusts to obtain. It is to the use 
of the legally appropriated wealth of others, 

45 



more than to their natural superiority, that 
their assumptions are due. 

Herein lies the secret of the decay of na- 
tions through the survival of the morally 
unfit — the retention of back numbers that 
prevents moral progress and finally crushes 
national life. Herein, also, lies the danger 
of preparedness, the danger of a great mili- 
tary power that may be used by such a party 
against the people instead of for national 
protection. 

It does not come within the scope of this 
brief essay to give party histories — these are 
here unnecessary, for, if more is desired, there 
is abundance of information within easy reach 
of the reader. Conservative parties are domi- 
nated by the selfishness of comparatively few 
wealthy citizens. This party, therefore, has 
always been farther from impartial repre- 
sentation than has the liberal party, and the 
tendency is to depart ever farther from 
justice with increase of wealth and power — 
party names reveal nothing of their principles. 

Why, when seen from the viewpoint of 
wealth production and distribution, conserva- 
tive parties have always served the few at 
the expense of the many is very plain. It is 

46 



immediately due to the conservative's good 
opinion of himself and his party on the one 
hand, and to his contempt for the progressive 
and his party on the other. The fact that the 
conservative party is made up largely of the 
more prosperous — of those with a better 
chance to become educated, leads the con- 
servative to believe that his party is the 
naturally superior one. He is either unable 
to see or, if able to see, he refuses to acknowl- 
edge that what men are is largely due to their 
opportunities, means, education — more to their 
circumstances than to their superiority, to 
matters over which they have had little or no 
control. Men thus favored naturally tend to 
gravitate, and as a rule do gravitate to the 
conservative side, and here use these advan- 
tages to selfish ends — use them regardless of 
fairness. 

The failure of most individuals of which 
the conservative party is composed to under- 
stand how they happen to be what they are, 
is one of the factors by which the party is led 
into all sorts of unfair acts of legislation. 

The belief that their membership is one of 
innate superority once established, there fol- 
lows a conviction that their party, also, is 

47 



equipped with sufficient superiority to entitle 
it to prerogative rights. 

This stage once reached, there is no place 
to stop, and the way is open for any sort of 
delusion to creep in and set up the extreme of 
unfair party action. 

They reason that since their membership is 
of a quality sufficiently superior to entitle it 
to party prerogative, and the great majority 
need and should have a party guardian, this 
guardianship is one of their responsibilities, — 
that is, the conservative party is equipped by 
Nature with an inborn fitness; is, by reason 
of its superiority, endowed with a social, 
economical and political function which it 
must not neglect. 

By such false reasoning they soon convince 
themselves that it is a duty they owe the 
nation to place their party in power by what- 
ever means may seem best to its leaders. 

To determine the majority vote, they have 
not merely a right, but it becomes hereby their 
duty to control educational channels through 
the matter of text books, to control the daily 
press, the platform, and the pulpit; for Jusuit- 
ically speaking, "the end justifies the means." 

This explains existing matters of political 

48 



fact; it explains what has been taking place 
for generations back; it explains how it is 
that the political opinions of the many are 
formed in such way as to make them vote to 
fleece themselves, and how they are made to 
pay a high price for their false education. 

WHY CONSERVATIVES HOLD A MAJORITY 

IT is, therefore, due to a lack of the right 
information that, in their feelings, the 
majority of men are in sympathy with the 
conservative party. 

This party is composed of two elements, 
the wealthy or well-to-do, and the less in- 
telligent and politically simple of those who 
are poor — the managed element. The latter, 
blinded by their own selfishness, by their 
meagre and erroneous instruction, fail to 
recognize their party friends. But desiring 
to be on the winning and respectable side, 
they resort to all sorts of connivances, even 
to playing the part of the toady, to attain 
that which they never reach. They hope some 
time, of course, to become sufficiently wealthy 
to show off, but they know nothing of how 
to accomplish the desired result. Lacking 
self-reliance, they resort to attachments — in 



proof, note the names of children and of 
business. This class has no initiative, no 
originality. And, although helpless and de- 
pendent, it fears that any change will 
make matters worse; for, being lazy, it dis- 
likes to be disturbed. 

That which determines a poor man to play 
his party game of life with the conservatives 
is his lack of understanding — it certainly 
does not go his way. 

Caution, thrift, self-esteem, the desire to 
secure comfort and respectability, are all 
legitimate. 

But this desire, common to both the above 
mentioned classes, of the one to become, and 
of the other to remain plutocratic — that is, 
this ambition to obtain the means, right or 
wrong, to triumph over, to take advantage 
of, and (if not with, then without merit) 
to be looked up to by others as superior, is 
a low type of vulgarity rather than a legiti- 
mate aspiration. 

Men of this "bossy" or military type- 
tryrants with power and servile without — 
have evolved — regardless of what they may 
assume — but a small amount of fellow feel- 
ing; they lack both sympathy and knowl- 

50 



edge and are hereby placed in a back num- 
ber order of human unfoldment which men 
should have long since been educationally 
awakened to leave individually and col- 
lectively behind. 

In minds so dominated there can be little 
ability to see the importance of general, 
well distributed prosperity, little desire to 
extend common justice. For it is due to 
the moral and intellectual dificiency of this 
type, to their lack of unfoldment, that they 
fail to see the value of such promotion, to 
themselves as well as to others. 

These desires that make the tyrant are 
primitive; they are deeply rooted in an old 
order of animal naturalness that only time, 
suffering, and education will replace with a 
higher, a human, and a moral naturalness. 

The only way to discard greed with all its 
entailed miseries, is through the gateway of 
enlightenment. When the majority of men 
are so far enlightened as to realize and to 
act upon the realization that the chief factor 
of human progress is the moral factor and 
that there is in the world abundance for 
every human being, "Want and the fear of 
want" will disappear from the earth. 

51 



In proportion to what we know do we 
form correct ideals of conduct. These ideals 
we approach in practice as fast as we are 
driven by suffering to learn and volunteer 
to learn still more. The active power behind 
all conduct — that which operates knowledge, 
sets up practice, prompts to an effort to reach 
the ideal — is feeling, and feeling is the product 
of suffering. 

Selfish practices in time teach their folly, 
by entailing evils that make man suffer; 
through this suffering he is driven into 
sympathy with his neighbor, and to the 
correction of his errors in thought and con- 
duct. 

This is the stage across which the human 
family is now moving in its unfoldment. 
The injustice that comes of ignorance and 
the failure of men to learn to educate and 
to perform as well as they know, explain 
all the turmoils and horrors of today. The 
first step in the increase of human con- 
sciousness is the one of learning to learn; 
the next step taken in learning should be 
the one of wise use. 

It is evident that all men are driven by 
their needs and their suffering to learn; 

52 



and, that while this is taking place they 
learn to seek knowledge consciously. This 
step is slowly followed by the one of learning 
its application, a part of which is the edu- 
cational process. But while we are cross- 
ing the stage of selfishness or slave driven 
education, our experiences must necessarily 
be of a drastic nature. We must be driven 
by the tortures that inevitably follow In- 
justice and error into feeling for others. 

Learning to be democratic and moral in 
feeling, then, is a slow process, and the suf- 
ferings caused by arbitrary monarchial, or 
conservative rule are among its greatest 
promotive factors. 

Therefore (and it is evidently in the great, 
purposeful scheme of things that it should 
be so), conservative parties come into con- 
trol oftener, remain there longer, and they 
abuse the power given them more flagrantly 
by monopolizing most of the wealth of the 
land, than do those with progressive prin- 
ciples. 

Though there lies concealed in every fact 
of life evidence of design, the discovery of 
this design requires careful research and 
the truth is but slowly perceived. 

53 



To take the matter of political parties: 
It requires but little ability and investigation 
to learn which party through the working 
of its principles tends to befriend the many, 
yet men are long in the learning — the many 
are unable to see their way back to the 
cause of the effects by which they are 
hampered. 

Understanding, therefore, has been reached 
by few, nor are the majority likely to be 
better informed except by being driven to 
learn through years of suffering. In time, 
of course, they will learn to learn. 

Existing facts are hereby explained: Men 
place greater confidence in conservative than 
they do in liberal parties, because (for one 
thing evidently) they need for their awaken- 
ing, the chastening experiences of an un- 
just monopoly system run in the interest of 
a few conservative party favorites. 

The majority learn the cause of the com- 
munity effects in which they are submerged 
and made to suffer, but slowly — they are un 
awakened. 

Hence, in the matter of political economy 
and politics, generations of starvation, fight- 
ing and suffering are required to teach men 

54 



what they should learn, but do not learn in 
one term of school and have ready to put 
in practice with their first vote — it is easier 
to play than to think. 

In spite of the fact that there is abund- 
ance of sound economic theory available 
in matter that might be used educationally to 
unite men in constructive political action, it is 
not used. The many being too dull and inert 
to learn and the few to selfish to learn, men 
are divided by a thousand and one con- 
flicting opinions, few of which have any 
rational value; consequently social reform is 
a slow, noisy, and difficult process. 

There is a great body of erroneous popular 
belief in the world which every man dis- 
cards soon after he begins to think. The 
one, who is yet so little informed as to be- 
lieve in and worship at the shrine of these 
fetishes in politics, economics or religion, can 
be made during an exciting campaign or 
revival to act upon any sort of foolishness. 

Only by knowing whence they come can 
the troubles and ills of life be avoided; by 
the same means, only, can they be removed 
when once fixed upon us. 

Only because the majority of men do not 

55 



know their cause do they contract social 
ills, and these ills are allowed to remain in 
effect for the same reason. When in a 
panic of want and suffering, the many vote 
for a change of administration they do so 
with no definite idea of what is needed to 
bring relief. 

They do not will to action, they do not 
move by what they know, but are moved by 
what they feel. This provision of compul- 
sory move is established in all life to keep 
it moving onward to where, in the human 
family, men will have gained sufficient in- 
telligence and will to set up a rational move. 

The present fact is that most men are 
moved to action by their feelings — by the 
compulsions of fear and suffering, rather 
than by knowledge; they move grudgingly 
and slavishly rather than willingly. 

This form of move, however, is not in 
vain; it renders a service of particular value 
in social progress through political parties. 

For, it is through the stings and smarts of 
the many, their needs, culminating at inter- 
vals in driving them into blind mass-action 
to demand a change to something better, 
that determines the legislative tendency of 

56 



the liberating party — this mass move is what 
compels the liberating party to make more 
or less of an effort to bring relief, to so 
change the laws as to improve general con- 
ditions. 

The changes thns made, though small, are 
those which, by destroying old forms, pre- 
serve some plasticity of social structure — 
are those which gain and preserve the free- 
dom to make some improving change, to 
save national life and civilizations from be- 
coming extinct through fixity of structure. 

In all departments of life, wherever 
progress is made we find it to be largely 
through compulsion — men are driven into 
the intelligent and voluntary operation of 
their powers. 

In the matter of adopting improved ma- 
chinery, they are driven to displace the out- 
of-date machine with the improved variety 
oftener than they volunteer to do so — we, 
evidently, have reached but the outer edge 
of educational progress — the borderland 
where effects are not yet controlled by a 
knowledge of cause, consequently a field in 
which chaos reigns. 

This same thing holds true of political 

57 



parties, men have not yet learned to use 
them. 

Since, therefore, the principles by which 
the two parties are actuated differ funda- 
mentally and as must also the results of their 
practice, they need to be understood. This 
accomplished, there will come a radical 
change — a time when conservative party 
dominance will abruptly cease. 

Thereafter instead of being used through 
their thoughtless, emotional, and foolish 
party attachments to serve the personal am- 
bitions of the party leaders of any party, 
voters will be guided by knowledge equipped 
reason and will act to serve humanity as 
the larger part of their own welfare. It is 
encouraging to note that men are gradually 
breaking away from blind party adherence. 

FOOLISH EXPECTATIONS. 

THE slaveries of life are discarded but 
slowly. Monarchial forms of govern- 
ment, when they become too tyrannical to 
be longer endured, are thrown off by revo- 
lution. And, even in popular forms, men 
are turned from a period of conservative be- 
trayals to one of progressive release by their 

58 



suffering rather than by a knowledge of the 
cause of their suffering. 

When, therefore, liberating administrations 
have been selected, voters know little or 
nothing of what to expect, of what changes 
are needed to effect improvement, or how 
long after new laws are enacted for this pur- 
pose it takes to put these laws into operation 
and to secure the desired results. 

Being led by their feelings into absurd ex- 
pectations they look for improvement to come 
with impossible quickness, and they resent 
the delay which they do not understand to 
be unavoidable. 

It is due to the inertness of men that they 
lack wisdom, that they know nothing of cause 
and effect, and cannot see ahead. In conse- 
quence hereof they become enslaved with- 
out knowing how or why, and break for 
freedom only when they find themselves 
bound hand and foot. It is due to this same 
lack that the moment they are ready to cry 
"enough" and to attempt to break away 
they look for and expect to find some im- 
mediate means of release. This holds true 
of the coming and the holding of all human 
bondages. In the case of their physical ills 

59 



brought about by self-neglect and abuse 
men expectantly look for some means to ef- 
fect cure with miraculous quickness. 

Hence the history of all progress has been 
a long and tempestuous struggle of drowsy 
men kicked into action by suffering. 

In the evolution of governments, even when 
we reach the popular form, we find that the 
conservative element is always trusted, lead- 
ing, making unjust laws of monopoly and in 
other ways betraying those who trust them, 
hereby fixing upon the great majority an 
automatic system of legal fleecing. 

Because the masses are led and taught the 
truth by torture, and made to pay too much 
for both their leadership and their education, 
both sides are injured. 

The move of life is through tangible forms 
of expression, but life's action cannot im- 
prove, men can not move upward as well as 
onward, only so fast and so far as obsolete 
and useless forms are replaced by improved, 
and in this sense, by higher ones. 

The moment old forms, processes and habits 
have served their purpose, it is in the un- 
folding law that improved varieties begin 
trying to displace them. This move in- 

60 



voluntary in Nature may be safely taken as 
our educational guide that it may be used 
voluntarily. 

In consulting our needs of today, we find 
that our greatest is a morally equipped and 
acting intelligence; moral progress has never 
kept pace with material progress in any age 
of the world, hence, nations have decayed 
and civilizations have become extinct. 

Social improvement follows individual im- 
provement, governments can improve only so 
fast as the individuals who make them im- 
prove. 

And, since effects in their turn become 
causes, social, economic and political im- 
provement entail a further improvement of 
the individual. Could all men and women 
come suddenly to realize the importance of 
education and of personal integrity, to see 
the evils that flow from a single dishonest act, 
progress would go forward and harmony of 
life step in by leaps and bounds. Dishonest 
acts of law making are responsible for as 
many of the evils of life as all other dishonest 
acts combined. 

The conservation and continuation of 
progress have largely depended upon, and 

61 



they still depend upon, comparatively few of 
the less selfish, educational leaders, many of 
whom are little known in their day, for the 
reason that it takes time for the higher ideals 
which they set in motion among men to be 
understood. 

Consequently this highest of service is sel- 
dom adequately recompensed and it often 
meets with ridicule if not with persecution. 

There is a very great difference between 
the leader of men who knows enough to lead 
and has a desire to lead in the direction of 
general welfare, and the one who neither 
knows enough to render nor cares to render 
such service. But how few there are who 
can see this difference through a knowledge 
of fundamental principles, and as a further 
consequence of such knowledge, to discern 
the difference between a statesman and a 
political humbug. 

Nor do the evils entailed by a lack of 
broad intelligence end here ; as a result, 
they spring up in every department of life. 

It is because a very large percentage of 
the population in every land fail to under- 
stand the scope of their natural rights, that 
they are not insulted by offers of charity, 

62 



and a larger percentage, even of those who 
see in what they call emoluments of office 
and in "tips" no instrumentality of degre- 
dation. So, also, do we find it with appeals 
made to different grades of intelligence. 

The arguments of a lecturer appearing to 
be sound to the great majority of his audience 
may be seen to be false to the better in- 
formed few. So, the reasoning, which at one 
stage of a man's unfoldment appears to be 
sound, may be seen at his next, higher stage 
of gained intelligence to be so ridiculously 
fallacious as to be an insult to any thinking 
man. 

Upon the subject matter used by campaign 
orators, few men are well informed, and as a 
consequence campaign speeches can be made 
and are made — particularly by conservative 
leaders — to befog and mislead the many with- 
out insulting them. Though influenced hereby 
to fleece themselves by voting to place most 
of their natural opportunities in the hands 
of monopolists, not over twenty-five per cent 
of the voting population are sufficiently well 
informed in party history, land monopoly, 
methods of taxation, national finance and 

63 



economics to realize what has been ac- 
complished and how. 

This lack of enlightenment explains why- 
it is that conservative parties are able to 
hold the confidence of a working majority. 
The rule is to judge a party by superficial 
evidence, and to judge individuals by their 
external appearances and immediate influence 
by show, vulgar display, pyrotechnies, empty 
rhetoric, humor; as shown elsewhere in this 
essay. Besides, men are, for this same reason 
of short measure very susceptible to flattery. 

Confidence in the conservative party is 
greatly strengthened by suggestion as em- 
bodied in its claim to preserve to a greater 
degree than does the progressive party the 
existing order of things, to resist change, to 
stand for stability. And since, by the mistakes 
of change and a failure to locate causes, many 
have been taught to fear change, this claim 
and belief is a powerful factor in holding 
control. 

While we grant this conservative theory 
we deny that it is wisely operated, the stabil- 
ity it puts into practice is too changeless or 
immovable; it resists needed changes — it is 
the death grip of an unjust system. And 

64 



unless this can be broken, unless intelligence 
or social upheaval comes to the rescue, it 
strangles national life and leads to the stabil- 
ity of death. 

In a moving equilibrium, in an alive and 
wide-awake stability, in a rebuilding, better- 
ing change, are found the true conservatism 
and the true progressivism. 

In its moral conduct, the central govern- 
ment of a nation should be a power of such 
strength as to elevate the ideals, increase the 
honesty, improve the social life, and even 
the business life of the entire nation. 

What, for the past fifty years, has been 
the influence radiating from the City of 
"Washington — our national Capitol? Has it 
not by its examples of privilege granting, 
corrupted and demoralized the business life 
of the entire nation? 

The conservative party undoubtedly con- 
serves, but what does it conserve? Is it 
honest? Does it seek and conserve the 
best? Does it admit and conserve progress? 
Does it tend to promote intelligence, moral 
conduct, higher ideals? Does it give justice 
and increase the sum of human happiness? 

On the contrary, and as shown above, do 

65 



we not find that a very large part of con- 
servative party effort is expended in creat- 
ing and conserving special privileges, in pro- 
tecting the property holding of the " haves* ' 
at the expense of the "have nots"? And 
does not this tend to antagonise, embitter, 
corrupt and criminalize men? Does not 
special privilege creating place a premium on 
dishonesty? 

Every student of history knows that in all 
ages conservatives have monopolized, and 
every student who understands political 
economy today knows that conservatives 
(much more than progressives) do now 
monopolize and hold out of use the natural 
opportunities of the many, and that they are 
hereby moving society toward the stability 
of death. 

Take no one's word for this but look up 
the history of the conservative party (Re- 
publican) in our own country during the 
past fifty years and discover what this party 
has done to place the public domain in a 
few hands. 

The less one knows, the more does he be- 
lieve in and look for miracles. And since 



66 



monopolists of wealth and conservatives in 
politics are one and the same, the moment 
they find their party in control of the gov- 
ernment, they come to its assistance and be- 
gin performing the "good times" miracles 
which their blind, simple, and easily satis- 
fied constituents have been looking for. 
Monopoly holds the income producing prop- 
erty that controls the machinery of produc- 
tion and distribution. 

THE SYSTEM THAT STEALS YOUR WAGES. 

IT is in the nature of its earning that no 
individual has any moral right to the ap- 
propriation and private use of ground rent — to 
the rental value of land. This value is com- 
monly called the "unearned increment;" and, 
evidently, for the reason of its intangible 
coming or earning, because it is made by 
everybody, it does not seem to be earned by 
anybody, because it is community earned it 
does not seem to be earned at all, but seems 
to germinate and grow like a tree — in fact, 
the way of its earning is so silent and hidden 
that its enormous amount is unknown and 
even its existence is overlooked by the ma- 

67 



jority of men who know nothing of political 
economy. 

However, when this value is once clearly 
seen by the majority, by the community by 
whom it is earned, it will be taken and used 
for public revenue — the purpose for which 
it very evidently comes into existence, — in- 
stead of as now being allowed to flow into 
private pockets where it does not belong, and 
where it is squandered in part as a political 
corruption fund. 

When right use is made of ground rent, it 
will abolish our unjust personal property tax, 
open idle land to idle men, and set in motion 
extra wheels of production and of commerce. 
It will widen city streets, relieve the con- 
gested centers of population and cramped 
business quarters, giving more room for less 
rent. 

It will also remove the tyranny exercised 
by private corporations — such as railroads, 
and steamship lines — in their distribution of 
products to consumers. 

In fact, to one who has given some honest 
thought to the matter it is evident that fol- 
lowing the natural use of ground rent and 
the consequent opening of land to legitimate 

68 



use, the productive capacity of the world 
will very soon double, distribution will be 
then released, honest possession and use will 
step in, waste be reduced to a minimum, 
while poverty and crime will gradually fade 
from the earth. 

There is another fact which prevents men 
from seeing, appropriating and using ground 
rent in this natural way of revenue. And 
this is habit, custom; private appropriation 
and use seems legitimate because it has al- 
ways been the custom; men are unconscious 
of the wrong use because they have never 
seen the right use, and all their education 
tends to keep this belief in private use in- 
tact. It falls, in consequence, as uncon- 
sciously and comfortably upon the senses of 
most men as the ticking of their old clock. 

The change, therefore, from private to pub- 
lic use requires time; before this feat can 
be accomplished general intelligence must 
have so increased that the majority of men 
can see the facts of the matter, can see how 
under the present system of land holding 
their wages are absorbed by land values and 
collected by others in the form of rent. They 
must understand political economy. A com- 



plete understanding of political economy, how- 
ever, requires a knowledge of many con- 
tiguous branches of information. 

Morally speaking the labor saving machine 
with its continuous increase of productive 
power belongs to all men. By legal con- 
trivance it is appropriated by the few through 
the collection of ground rent. The com- 
munity, by conceding to a few the legal right 
to appropriate ground rent, gives, also, to 
this same few the opportunity to shirk all 
the taxes, and to pretend to and to seem to 
pay the same. So long as this is allowed, the 
great body of men, women, and children will 
derive comparatively little benefit from their 
labor saving machinery or from any other 
form of progress, and there will continue to 
be among us millions steeped in ignorance, 
poverty, and crime, with millions of pre- 
ventive and alleviative devices operated by 
an army of sympathetic simpletons. 

The masses can derive but little benefit 
from the increase given to productive power 
by the progress of invention until they have 
gained sufficient general information to sec 
that this productive power is absorbed by in- 
crease of land values — an increase which in 

70 



turn serves to determine the increase of 
rental values; and, under the present system, 
this ever increasing ground rent passes into 
the private pockets of landlords. 

The majority must also be able to see that 
if rents increase, an increase in the price of 
merchandise must follow, market values 
must increase, for the merchant is obliged to 
find some way to make wages and to get 
back from his customers what he pays to 
his landlord in higher rent, and the way 
he takes to do this is to raise his prices. 
This explains increase of prices and the in- 
creasingly high cost of living. Under the 
present system competition can have little 
effect in keeping down prices, for rent col- 
lectors leave but a trifle of margin upon 
which merchants can work. 

Perhaps you may have noticed that the 
comparatively few who own valuable, rent- 
producing city lands nearly all belong to the 
conservative class, and as the strong members 
of a political body they can offer to the 
great army of those in need and devoid of 
understanding the insult of paternalism. You 
may, also, have noticed that they command 
many votes besides their own, that they hold 

71 



the power to paralyze business with high 
rents and an entombed currency. Before 
the masses of men can receive much benefit 
from civilization they must understand this, 
become mutually informed, stop bickering 
among themselves, and act together in justice 
and honesty. 

Fatherly party care is still believed in by 
the many who are not yet well enough in- 
formed to realize that even an offer of such 
care is an insult to human intelligence. 

Nearly all men come into this life equipped 
with the possibility in themselves and furn- 
ished with the external means of self-sup- 
port. 

But since, through their stupidity and 
inertness, they have lost access to their ex- 
ternal means and cannot therefore, exercise 
their possibilities, they have become willing 
to accept of a pauperizing paternalism in 
government. The majority of individuals can 
never secure their rights till the art of com- 
munity action has been learned — a natural 
system of social regulation established, a 
system in which competitive freedom will 
not only keep up an automatic equilibrium 

72 



of growth but will, also, prevent the enslave- 
ment of the individual. 

At the present stage of mental and moral 
progress a few men cannot with safety be 
intrusted with great power over many men 
either in the form of a monarchy or of Social- 
ism. The name of an absolutism matters not 
in the least. 

The proper function of a government is to 
protect the freedom of its units, to act in co- 
operative production, not to take away this 
freedom by helping favorities to monopolize 
the opportunities of its units. 

Should I, while acting as your guardian, 
find that you placed confidence in me, and 
knew but little of what you possessed, I 
could, were I infamous enough to do so, steal 
your fortune and make a great show of 
doling out to you by means of a job or by 
charity a meagre subsistence, and I could 
secure and continue to hold your gratitude 
as long as I could keep you from learning 
the truth. 

Until such time as the individual is suf- 
ficiently well informed to see that this is a 
precise parallel of conservative party methods 
of operation in all lands, he is not morally 

73 



entitled to the use of the ballot, and he de- 
serves to remain the slave that he now is. 

This it is that needs to be understood by 
all voters. The only protection needed by 
the many is awakening — is to know that 
their protection must be found in themselves 
and consists of enlightenment sufficient to 
enable them to see how to use themselves 
and how to gain and to use their natural 
opportunities without using the power hereby 
gained to oppress others. 

This is now denied by our infamous laws of 
monopoly. Free competition, Nature's evolu- 
tionary provision, has never been in oper- 
ation since the beginning of organized gov- 
ernments. 

The process of human awakening, though 
rapidly increasing, will yet require a long 
time of monopolistic insult, deprivation, and 
suffering before a stage is reached where 
the ballot will be used intelligently. 

For a time after birth we must be cared 
for by others. Awakening and strengthen- 
ing are gradual, but prior to a certain age 
we are unable to don our own clothes. 

In the present adult life average aware- 
ness, self-control, initiative, persistence, in- 

74 



sight, and ability to see ahead are small. 
Hence, the many opportunities by which we 
are surrounded must be seen and used by a 
few men at a pittance of benefit to most men. 

And particularly true does the above hold 
of opportunities to do things in large and im- 
portant ways. 

This being shown by a few at a great 
expense to the many is a spur used by 
Nature, and serves to awaken men. For 
the majority are extremely timid and slug- 
gish, and only by being cheated, flogged, 
made jealous and to suffer; by being driven, 
can they come to co-operate or to act either 
in behalf of others or even of themselves. 

Consequently great mergers, like the Stand- 
ard Oil Company, great railroad systems, 
labor and trades unions, with all their abuses, 
may after all, have a greater use than we 
yet realize. The development of unused op- 
portunities cannot be wrong, but the abuse 
of the power which this development gives 
does seem to be wrong. This fight between 
employer and employe is a fight of ignorance, 
for there is a field, when found, of mutual 
understanding, mutual interest and harmon- 
ious action. 

75 



However, the part which abuse of power 
plays in awakening the majority of men to 
action through suffering should not be over- 
looked. Were great fortunes never used 
oppressively, were men not driven against 
each other in battle array, would they not 
miss a part of their needed awakening — 
would they ever awaken? 

The present poverty-stricken condition of 
many is a fact due to a poverty of mind which 
blinds them to their heritage of opportunity, 
a heritage which they can never be made 
to see and to use without being kicked. 

So long as men fail to understand political 
economy and contiguous sciences they can 
never see how by legislative chicanery they 
are deprived of their rights and their wages, 
and they will never take to the educational 
way of gaining this information without be- 
ing kicked there. 

Till their eyes are opened by voluntary 
education they will fail also to see that 
through this same usurpation their labor 
saving machinery is owned and kept idle, 
that the same usurpation entails compulsory 
idleness, small wages for the time of labor, 
and holds beyond their reach by high prices, 

76 



the comparatively small amount which this 
monopoly allows to be produced, they will 
fail, also, to see how, through this same 
usurpation, rents are made high, money kept 
from circulation, and the products of in- 
dustry held from the consumer. 

THE BALLOT CONTROLLED BY FALSE 
EDUCATION 

IN going thoughtfully back to those who 
control the wealth of a country by owning 
the valuable rent producing land (and conse- 
quently the machinery of wealth production^ 
we find that education also is under the 
same control. 

The rising generation, therefore, is taught — 
particularly, in political economy — the false- 
hoods that the wealth holders in their own 
interests would have it taught. 

Not only are our schools under the spell 
of monopoly control, but so, also, largely, is 
the press as well as the lecture platform and 
the pulpit. Why is it that so few men are 
able to discuss either religion or economics 
without anger? Evidently, it is for two 
reasons; first, they know nothing about 
either; second, and chiefly in both cases al- 

77 



most the entire world is educated under the 
hypnotic spell of selfish interests. In evi- 
dence hereof — of a psychologized condition 
— is this touchiness of ignorance, this quick 
resentment of opposition, this easily provoked 
anger and revenge. 

Wealth holders can arrive at an under- 
standing. Why cannot the many? They 
do not know enough and their feelings are 
tribal, they cannot control their temper, con- 
sequently, they are always quarreling among 
themselves. When not quarreling, they can 
be easily made to quarrel by those who wish 
to divide and use them. 

We have yet to learn as religionists have 
learned, the hypnotic power of an idea con- 
stantly and emphatically repeated. Nor, 
need that which is repeated be true in order 
to be believed. From this spell, when once 
imposed, the only liberator is a gain of intel- 
ligence that gives the ability to reason. All 
are familiar with the fact that few can dis- 
cuss matters of religion without anger, but 
few see that it is because of the hypnotically 
imposed lessons of dogma. 

Children are so educated that on becoming 
men they will forge the chains of their own 

78 



serfdom with the ballot. This conspiracy 
operating in both public and most private 
schools against true education and progress is 
realized by comparatively few — for most 
teachers are either under or compelled to act 
under the same spell. 

Thus it is that children are denied the 
most essential part of their education, they 
are refused that information to which every 
child has a right as inalienable as to that of 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

In fact, without this information true lib- 
erty, life and happiness are impossible. Ex- 
isting conditions of increasing forms of war- 
fare under which no person is truly happy 
conclusively show this. This unhappmess is 
natures effort to arrest attention and correct 
errors of conduct. 

To the wilfully wrong in education is 
largely due the fact that in all lands men 
have more confidence in conservative than in 
liberal parties, that conservative parties are 
so fully trusted that they are given more time 
to become corrupt through the appropriation 
of natural opportunities. It is due to their false 
education that the great body of men look 
upon their party as a guardian rather than 

79 



as a servant, and become party prejudiced 
underlings. Thus at their own cheap estimate 
of themselves they are taken with flattery 
and used by political party exploiters. 

This educational and campaign manage- 
ableness of the majority explains in part 
why monopolists look upon themselves as 
men having a natural fitness to be the guard- 
ians of this majority — why monopolists be- 
lieve the conservative party to be their legiti- 
mate instrument of use to serve this end — why 
they have lost sight of the circumstances 
which have made them — why they believe, 
individually and collectively, that they are 
the innately superior — why they have de- 
veloped a feeling of proprietorship in govern- 
ment, — and why they so far resent all liberat- 
ing social movements as to consider them the 
intrusions of impudence. 

THE CORRECTIVE PROCESS 

NATURE has this attitude of mind in 
process of correction. Dominated men 
must gradually awaken to their own pos- 
sibilities; and all men must awaken to the 
fact that human life is slowly moving com- 
petitively in the direction of a greater intel- 
80 



ligence, of individual freedom, of personal 
consent, of democracy and morality; and, also, 
that contemporaneously and consequently, it 
is leaving behind its opposite: Monopoly, 
monarchy, plutocracy, aristocracy, paternal- 
ism, prohibition, coercion, tyranny, espionage, 
jealousy, suspicion, injustice. This passing 
will be hastened in proportion to the rate of 
speed with which intelligence is gained. 

There is a growing strength of feeling that 
the tyranny of dominant political parties and 
religions, through their arbitrary rules of be- 
lief, have been allowed to remain in oper- 
ation altogether too long; that the doom of 
these systems should, in the interest of human 
happiness, have been long since pronounced 
by common consent. This feeling is hasten- 
ing their passing. 

The meaning and use of this great evolv- 
ing scheme of life (but little of which we have 
learned) is ever before us. This much, how- 
ever, has become evident: Nature always 
kills that which she is no longer able to im- 
prove with experience, and she uses the pul- 
verized material of her dead bodies to build 
progressive forms. Because the rat persists in 
its conservative ways and cannot learn to 

81 



live among men without stealing and in other 
ways interfering with human rights, it is 
doomed to final extinction. But for many- 
reasons it has some time yet to stay; it is 
helping us just now to construct ever better 
buildings — it will remain as long as useful — 
but so is it with all stand-pat tyranny. 

All these advantages, these efforts of men 
to gain something for nothing, and hold it to 
attain prosperity at the expense of others, to 
gain legal power over their fellows, are very 
grave mistakes — rat proclivities with which 
they in time must, through the enemies thus 
aroused, work their own destruction and pass 
away. For, they are advantages that give 
rise in the minds of those who secure them, 
in the minds of men and bodies of men a 
very provoking over-estimate of themselves. 

The bully, the tyrant, the plutocrat, and 
the monarch are thus all accounted for — and 
in its final analysis the product of legal rob- 
bery is usually a half educated tyrant, serv- 
ing as an awakening instrumentality during 
a passing phase of life; and while doing so, 
acting, also, as his own destroyer by provok- 
ing an opposition sufficiently strong to serve 
the purpose. 

82 



Usurpation creates in the mind of the 
usurper a false ideal — a feeling that "might 
is right." Being blind to the cause of the 
advantages he enjoys, blind to the way they 
were obtained, perhaps, he, nevertheless, be- 
lieves himself hereby appointed to be the 
natural leader and director of the affairs of 
other men. So the usurper becomes in his 
feelings a plutocrat and has time to think 
up mischief. 

In various ways men gain power over other 
men. To have gained the intelligence and 
the moral feeling to use any form of power 
over others without abuse is to have reached 
a stage in the growth of character that marks 
the highest type of man yet evolved. 

The number of this type is, of course, in- 
creasing. But the sort of triumph that still 
pleases most men is primitive; it is the 
triumph that humiliates others, neighbors, 
competitors; triumphs over religious and po- 
litical rivals, triumphs that stir up envy, 
jealousy and hatred. This, rather than the 
triumph of a discovery, an invention, an ex- 
planation, a conciliation, a creation, or a 
gain of knowledge — constructive triumphs 

88 



that add to general welfare and human hap- 
piness. 

Though the inventor, the scientist and the 
educator belong to a vastly higher type than 
either the warrior or the politician, the feel- 
ings of men are not yet evolved to a realiza- 
tion of this fact — most men and women like 
brass buttons and tumult. 

The motive power behind most political 
and all military conduct, though a dark-age 
feeling, a species of insanity, has many ad- 
mirers by affinity, and by its spread as an 
epidemic delusion. 

In the use of great wealth, comparatively 
few are yet inspired by high motives, though 
increase of intelligence brings with it a cor- 
responding improvement of use. 

It can not be successfully denied that at 
present the bulk of the wealth of the land 
is held by men, prominent in, or leaders of 
the conservative party. There is among them 
a comradeship, an affinity tie of mutual inter- 
est in the way of appropriation — but wrong 
use and the evils hereby entailed do not come 
so much from evil intent as because they do 
not realize the wrong of what they do. 

But their possessions carry with them a 

84 



great power in the influence of glamour over 
the simple minds of the dispossessed. 

Consequently, controlling as they do that 
which will insure their succession to control, 
whenever their flagrant abuse of trust has 
driven their party from office, they are not 
at all alarmed as to its return to power — 
they know it can be returned, and how. 

For they know that the saying: " Distance 
lends enchantment to the view" is a brief 
statement of a truth having a very wide ap- 
plication in the affairs of unthinking men and 
women. That is, they have learned that 
distance, money, desirable occupation, fine 
garments, showy surroundings, good reputa- 
tion, theatrical attire, gaudy colors, artistic 
gesture, emotional speech, music, fine man- 
ners, assumed dignity, high prices, lend a 
stage effect, give a romantic glamor of il- 
lusion that tends to emotionally subdue the 
simple or average mind. 

They also know that distance, either in 
time or space, lends enchantment, that green 
fields, when viewed from afar, have enchant- 
ing tints and appear to be smooth, that dead 
men and men in distant cities seem wiser 
than the living or than those who are close 

85 



at hand and they have learned to use all 
this glamour with practical effect, without 
realizing all the entailed evils of such use. 

Why then do we still wonder at men when 
by means of this illusion humbug they have 
secured important political place and abund- 
ance of means with which to purchase the 
suffrage of weak and needy men, if they, 
when on finding themselves favored by all 
the laws of the land, become possessed by the 
illusion that they are the superior ones of 
the earth? They are not only tremendously 
flattered by others, but also by themselves, 
and they are allowed no time to realize 
their mistaken attitude and immoral position 
among men. 

Ground rent collectors, though seldom stud- 
ents, understand the art of getting and hold- 
ing. The second generation of such col- 
lectors belong, as a rule, to the sporting or 
semi-sporting order, and their spare time is 
monopolized in such manner by flatterers 
that they do not and cannot estimate them- 
selves at their true value — nor do they learu 
much. They are often social perversions, 
watered stock; and through lack of competi- 
tive correction they soon become a menace. 

86 



The glamour of life can be corrected in 
great degree by intelligence. A lack of in- 
telligence explains conditions as we find them. 
Men are dominated by the stage illusions of 
life because they know too little to under- 
stand what exists behind the scenes. 

Enough voters with no measure or with a 
false measure of values conduct and of many 
other matters of life, hold the balance of 
power and stand ready with their ballots 
to serve for small consideration almost any 
selfish, predatory, wholesale scheme of legal, 
monopolistic thieving or graft which the 
"bosses" whom they serve may select. 

Lack of information makes the purchase 
price of many men cheap, and keeps the 
products of human effort and the medium of 
exchange and distribution — money — in the 
control of a few ambitious and unscrupulous 
hands. With this leverage, in the form of a 
system, these men can, in order to serve 
their personal selfishness and their party ends, 
make times either good or bad. And, if, when 
out of office they wish to return to power, 
they can proceed with a campaign of 
"squeeze" consisting of low wages, idleness 

87 



and high prices to frighten the borderland 
rabble back to the conservative camp. 

This is a matter well known to the more 
intelligent of both parties, and it explains 
why progressive parties aro feared by the 
masses. The latter, during liberal admin- 
istrations, have experienced stringency, they 
have felt "hard times," they have seen thou- 
sands lose their homes through mortgage 
foreclosures, they have seen idle men and 
needy families increase in great numbers, 
they have seen business go down and rents 
stay up with immediate consequences in an 
epidemic of failure and suicide. They have 
witnessed all these and many other effects 
accompanying liberal administrations, but 
without understanding. 

Having but little enlightenment, being 
without the ability to manage more than one 
idea with a single effort, the masses fail to 
see the "why," the cause of the din by which 
they are deafened, the dust by which they 
are blinded, of the effects in which they are 
submerged and by which they are made to 
suffer. Such men never look behind them 
for causes. 

88 



LIBERAL PARTY HANDICAPS 

HENCE, the liberal party comes into 
power only when the conservative or 
absorptive party constituency has appropriat- 
ed about everything of value in sight, at a 
time when the most obtuse can see and the 
majority can feel the tremendous need for a 
political housecleaning. 

The system in all lands of holding the 
sources of wealth production and distribution 
are such that it makes of the wealthy con- 
servative party constituency, a class of ab- 
sorptives. 

How during conservative administrations 
business is made brisk has been shown above, 
but it is a time of dissipation, prices of all 
sorts keep advancing, and particularly the 
price of land, which determines the rise in 
price of everything else. Rents are raised 
to pay interest on imaginary land values, 
consequently everything else must be raised 
in price to pay rents. In this way the 
purchasing power gradually passes from the 
great body of consumers into the hands of 
the rent collecting class and is banked, there 
to remain. Thus, one side becomes depleted 
and the other congested. 

89 



When, therefore, there is but little purchas- 
ing power left in the hands of the majority 
of consumers, business men find a gradually 
congesting market and begin looking to a 
change of administration for relief. When 
the change is made, however, the collapse at- 
tributed to the liberal party administration is 
inevitable — the conditions are all prepared. 

The country, when taken over by the party 
having liberal tendencies is always ready to 
pass into a state of business stagnation, or 
into a sickness similar to that of chronic 
dyspepsia, through impeded circulation and 
defective metabolism, a sickness so evidently 
brought on by a system that passes the 
purchasing power from the hands of the 
producing and consuming class to the hands 
of the absorptives (there to remain) as to 
admit of no mistake in assigning the cause. 

When the above is taken into consideration 
(and almost every voter has in mind the 
proof of its truthfulness) what can be looked 
for during one short term of liberating ad- 
ministration ? 

For most recoveries from illness require 
cessation from work, time for treatment and 
convalescing. No doubt, then, you can 

90 



imagine how diffcult must be the recovery of 
a patient who, while working, takes treat- 
ment from two doctors — one trying to cure 
him and the other trying to prevent cure. 

This, however, parallels very closely the 
difficulty with which a liberal political party 
in its administration is obliged to contend. 
The factors of production, land, labor, and 
capital, as well as the lines of distribution, 
being largely under the control of members 
of the conservative party, they are but little 
disturbed when their party is ousted from of- 
fice. For, assisted by the fears and "know- 
little" of voters, they can at once begin 
their campaign of return by making men still 
further idle and hungry. This is an argu- 
ment that never fails to bring back into 
conservative lines men who think as their 
stomachs feel. 

The majority of those who in their desper- 
ation vote to return government control to 
progressive hands fail to see that they are 
turning over to this party a commonwealth 
whose political state of health corresponds 
very closely to that of an invalid with im- 
peded circulation, with starved tissues, with 
drugged and disordered functions. 

91 



Consequently, if in liberating hands time is 
taken to cure and to convalesce, if prosperity 
slows down (as it must) instead of suddenly 
reappearing, resentment is shown by return- 
ing at the next election the conservatives to 
power. The well-known procedure of this 
party on return to office is to begin a sudden 
show of prosperity, is to begin to please the 
simple, trinket-loving minds with "good 
times" chocolate drops that consist of the 
nimble penny in exchange for their big slow 
dollars. 

They desire another chance to mortgage 
and to gamble. 

Reform under such a condition of the ma- 
jority mind is very slow and difficult. A 
fairly honest foundation is no more than well 
laid by a liberating rule when it is torn up, 
cast aside, and one less honest is put in its 
place. In rationality of reform procedure the 
process here employed is about equal to the 
regrafting of an orchard every four years. 

Reform administrations are kicked out be- 
fore they have had time to prepare and to put 
into operation more than a fraction of the 
needed changes. Nobody, therefore, ever 
realizes how much these changes, were they 

92 



given time in which to work, would do to im- 
prove matters. 

When measured by the possibilities offered 
by educational opportunity, general intel- 
ligence is far from high in this, or in any 
other country. 

Voters, therefore, are wholly unable to 
understand the tremendous difficulties with 
which a liberating administration must con- 
tend, the great amount of conservative rub- 
bish that must first be cleared away, the 
abuses that must be stopped and corrected, 
and particularly the stupendous reform-op- 
posing forces armed with special-privileged 
wealth that must be met and defeated before 
the prosperity machinery of the country can 
be set up and put in operation, before it can 
accomplish all of the little that a political 
party can do to improve social and economic 
conditions. For, there is a cause of social ills 
that lies much more deeply imbedded than 
the one of political parties. It is in the dis- 
honesty and injustice of the individual, in 
the monopoly greed that inevitably follows 
in the wake of his ignorance. Ignorance may 
be considered the most fundamental cause 
with which it is necessary to deal. 



Political parties could, however, turn their 
faces toward the light if their members knew 
enough to be honest. 

This party alternation, in which there is 
much change with but little improvement is 
due to the fact that the bulk of voting is a 
combination of feeling and of guess-work. 

Given a twenty per cent rise in general 
intelligence in which in particular is included 
a sound knowledge of political economy, a 
greater amount of social reform could be ac- 
complished in eight years than is now gained 
in fifty, and, with less trouble. 



94 



JI Few Helpful Books 



Four Books by S. F Shorey 

All in large, clear type and a popular 
form of expression. 

"The Greater Men and Women, as 
Factors of Human Progress." 

An essay study in the unfold- 
ment of human consciousness. 
Price, in paper, 25 cents; cloth, 
50 cents; leather, 75 cents. Post- 
age, 5 cents. 

"Human Harmonies and the Art of 
Making them." 

A search for the cause of life's 
tumult and of human suffering - , 
with the end in view of finding- 
some way to effect its removal. 
Price, in cloth, 50 cents. Post- 
age 10 cents. 

"Injustice and National Decay." 
A search for the cause of social 
disorder and national decay. 
Price, in paper, 25 cents; in 
boards, 40 cents. 

"Human Progress and Party Func- 
tions." (Just out). 

A study of political party action, 
to ascertain which party, if 
either, tends to befriend the 
many. Price, in paper, 25 cents; 
in boards, 40 cents. Postage, 5 
cents. 

"The Elixir of Life." By G. R. S. 
Mead. 

A brief consideration of the 
means by which a longer human 
life can be secured. Price, in 
paper, 25 cents. Postage, 5 
cents. 



